Miss Congeniality

(January 11, 2007)

2007 is the least aesthetically pleasing of the years parading through this decade; it is a Miss Congeniality at best, and that ribbon would be pinned to its chest by an emcee careful to keep his eyes cast away from its crocodile tears of joy. Its name contains more syllables than any other, long and gawky and barely able to support its own frame. It scans on the page like a bulbous creature with a hook nose, a broken tail dragging in the dirt to leave behind distressingly bleak proof of its purposeless passage. There is no symmetry, nor any mathematical salvation; the digit doesn't even possess the small mirrored effect of 2005, let alone the fortitude required of a prime number like 2003.

2007 is the lame puppy whose nose-prints smear your windows as it begs to come inside. It is the ugly, anti-Mandelbrot set scrawled into existence by your wonderfully unartistic child, which you dutifully affix to the fridge but long to cleanse with fire. It is neither alpha nor omega, but manages to neatly avoid the middle-child neuroses which might give it some sort of distinction.

In short, 2007 is a hideous kitten in need of your love. It may look terrible, but it will put in five times the effort to win you over - after all, what does a sleek 2008 or a curvacious 2002 have to prove? 2007 is full of potential, because it certainly isn't full of charisma.